How cool is this?
We are writing to you from The Elephant House in Edinburgh, the place
where J.K. Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books. (Editor’s Note – We were writing from there.
Because Adam is slow, it’s now a month later.
We will try to be better in future.)
By writing from a Scottish location about somewhere else
entirely, we have placed ourselves in good company. Consider J.K. Rowling. Though she has never publicly acknowledged
the fact, she wrote most of the first two Harry Potter books from this very cafe.
They keep a photo on the wall to prove
it. It improves business.
The bathrooms are full of graffiti: letters addressed “Dear
Ms. Rowling,” magical spells, fan mail to Harry, fan mail to Snape, and even a
prayer in Spanish from a struggling author begging for that one big break. Blasphemously but charmingly, the prayer is addressed
to J.K. Rowling.
Of course despite all the hype in Scotland about Harry’s
Scottish origins, J.K. Rowling set the whole series in England. Alas, poor Scotland! Always a bridesmaid…
Clearly however, we have digressed. Harry Potter has nothing to do with
Ireland. He has very little even to do
with Scotland. He is, however, a great
hook for gaining a reader’s attention.
So, about Ireland:
What a green place!
The beautiful irony of travel is discovering how often stereotypes hold
true. For instance, Irish grass is green
enough to be a bit unsettling. Irish bushes
and trees compete for a still more vivid shade of green. Embarrassed at their lack of green-ness, even
the gray stone walls blush green moss. The
green is so inescapable that one wonders if the Irish have a dozen words for it
like the Inuit supposedly have for snow; or if they have none, like fish do for
water.
We tried asking the fish but all of them were too
beer-battered and fried, not to mention delicious, to answer. See above about how stereotypes are often
true.
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| Killarney Park Waterfall (note the greenery trying to overtake the waterfall) |
Speaking of fish and chips, between the potatoes, beer,
and deep-fried everything, burning calories in Ireland is a must. Luckily, this was easy for us thanks to Irish
roads’ incessant triggering of Aislinn’s fight-or-flight response, and Adam’s
please-stop-gasping-already-it-makes-an-accident-way-more-likely-and-my-nerves-are-already-shot
response.
The pictures below should hopefully speak for
themselves. Needless to say the views
were spectacular: the Cliffs of Moher,
better known as the Cliffs of Insanity from The
Princess Bride, neolithic citadels, traffic jams composed entirely of
sheep, and winding beaches bordered by grassy fields. The routes we took in our rental car usually
consisted of two lane highways narrower than most Toronto alleyways. Every new sight was hidden behind the next
hill, a hill that also obscured any oncoming traffic or indeed the fact that
the road wasn’t about to end in a sudden cliff.
The practical upshot was just enough terror to make the whole experience
really memorable.
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| The Cliffs of Moher |
“Hey, this is
really quaint.”
“Yeah, and that’s despite the fact that I currently fear
for my life. How long before we can pull
over?”
“I don’t know. I’m
not even sure if this road has one or two lanes and there’s no end in
sight. You know what this is?”
“An opportunity to realise this was a bad idea?”
“No, it’s Squaint.
Scary but quaint.”
“Squaint! We may
both love a good portmanteau but this is no time for jokes. Also, that is far too cute for what this is. I’d go with Terrifeautiful instead.”
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| Irish Traffic Jam |
Speaking of segues, Ireland’s history may be less
beautiful than its roadways but it compensates by being more terrifying. Arriving in Dublin on the first day of our
round-the-world trip, bleary-eyed after an overnight flight, we decided a
walking tour would be a great way to keep ourselves awake. As an added bonus, the tour was free.
Our guide looked like an Irish Seth Rogen. He called himself “Fluffy.” On a free tour, you get your money’s worth.
First impressions aside, having to live entirely on tips
meant that “Fluffy” was a consummate professional, capable of compacting one
thousand years of Irish history into a three hour tour. Compacting it still further into one
protracted sentence, the narrative is heartbreaking: centuries of oppression,
then famine caused by oppression, military uprisings, massacres, terrorist uprisings,
and finally a civil war between those who were willing to accept an oath to the
English monarch as a condition of otherwise near-total independence and those
who simply couldn’t stomach any hint of England on Irish soil no matter what
the cost. This was followed at long last
by independence.
This all assumes that you ignore Northern Ireland
entirely. If you don’t, things get
really complicated – as Adam discovered four hours into his battle to conquer
Wikipedia’s articles on the subject. There
are more factions, historical minutiae, and plot twists to absorb than an Umberto Eco novel. To
simplify matters, people today refer to anything involving Northern Ireland
after the partition as “The Troubles.” This conveys the basic premise that
Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants were not fond of each other and
expressed this sentiment through sporadic explosions and gunfire. It’s euphemistic, sounds smart, and saves
tourists like us the bother of understanding.
Or, as Aislinn pointed out at 2am as Adam was conceding
defeat, “Turn off the light and stop already!
Haven’t you learned anything from your brother Dave? You don’t need to read things when there’s
already a movie!” Adam still has no idea
if she meant Michael Collins, In the Name of the
Father, or something else entirely, but he has since admitted she was
probably right.
In addition to Irish history, Fluffy made some excellent
recommendations on local pubs. In a
nutshell, these are the two great themes of Irish tourism: an endless stream of
sights relating to tragedies and deaths, and an endless stream of pubs in which
to drink because of them.
See again the comment about stereotypes above.
The modern Irish state was born from the Easter Uprising
of 1916. The Irish lost. There was tragedy. There were deaths. There may also have been much drinking in
pubs afterwards. The latter isn’t
well-documented. What is well-documented
is the timing and manner in which most of the leaders of the uprising were
incarcerated and executed over the next several days in Dublin’s Kilmainham
Gaol (Jail), sparking public sympathy and a huge surge in popular
support for Irish independence, also a string of movies three quarters of a
century later. Both Michael
Collins and In the Name of the Father were filmed
there.
To pay tribute to these two great themes in Irish
tourism, we ended a visit to the Kilmainham Gaol with a trip
to the Guinness Brewery.
Halfway there, Adam realised his wallet was missing. He ran back to the jail to ask if they’d
found it. Aislinn scoured the
streets. It remained stubbornly
lost. Great luck! We now had a reason to drink.
The tour was phenomenal.
The pint of Guinness included with the tour was perfectly poured, exact
in temperature, and delightful in flavour.
Adam left unsatisfied, neither because of the tour nor the recent loss
of his wallet. He had forgotten to ask a
question that would trouble him afterwards.
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| Aislinn and Adam Enjoying a Pint at the Guinness Tour |
The tour featured Arthur Guinness’ original lease for the
land on which the brewery stands. It
provides for a 9000 year term at 45 pounds per year. This begs the question: Who still collects
that 45 pounds each year? Does the family still collect it? Do they use it to buy a few rounds at the
local pub? Or do they curse their
ancestors’ poor financial sense, awaiting a distant day in which their
descendants can finally reclaim the land and get some real cash for it? There must be a good idea for a novel in this
somewhere.
We may not have mentioned the bit about the Irish and
literature, but see the part above about stereotypes. For those who are really interested, consider
reading some Jonathan Swift, or George Bernard Shaw. Don’t bother with Samuel Beckett. Waiting
for Godot is the literary equivalent of a Woody Allen movie, tons of
anticipation and never quite satisfying.
(Editor’s Note – Sorry to the Woody Allen fans out there.)
So, after drinking away our sorrows, we reported the lost wallet to the police. We then had another pint, this time at The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin. No drunk has incinerated this one in nearly 1000 years. Just think, in only 8000 years more, the original owner’s descendants might even be able to re-negotiate the lease.
They had Wi-Fi – being old doesn’t always mean you’re technologically out of touch. Net result: Adam checked his e-mail, learning not only that he’d passed his Emergency Medicine exam in Toronto but also that they’d found his lost wallet at the Kilmainham Gaol after all. Adam bought two more rounds. It seemed appropriate. Pardon the redundancy, but see the part about stereotypes above.
